He dropped his private manner and reverted to his lecture style.
“Could Carl Reiter have been goaded to such a pitch of torment that he turned on his tormentor and killed her? Suffering does queer things to a man. I could not be sure that it was not so!
“Next William Coleman. His behaviour, as reported by Miss Reilly, is certainly suspicious. If he was the criminal it could only be because his cheerful personality concealed the hidden one of William Bosner. I do not think William Coleman, as William Coleman, has the temperament of a murderer. His faults might lie in another direction. Ah! perhaps Nurse Leatheran can guess what they would be?”
How did the man do it? I’m sure I didn’t look as though I was thinking anything at all.
“It’s nothing really,” I said, hesitating. “Only if it’s to be all truth, Mr. Coleman did say once himself that he would have made a good forger.”
“A good point,” said Poirot. “Therefore if he had come across some of the old threatening letters, he could have copied them without difficulty.”
“Oy, oy, oy!” called out Mr. Coleman. “This is what they call a frame-up.”
Poirot swept on.
“As to his being or not being William Bosner, such a matter is difficult of verification. But Mr. Coleman has spoken of a guardian—not of a father—and there is nothing definitely to veto the idea.”
“Tommyrot,” said Mr. Coleman. “Why all of you listen to this chap beats me.”
“Of the three young men there remains Mr. Emmott,” went on Poirot. “He again might be a possible shield for the identity of William Bosner. Whatever personal reasons he might have for the removal of Mrs. Leidner I soon realized that I should have no means of learning them from him. He could keep his own counsel remarkably well, and there was not the least chance of provoking him nor of tricking him into betraying himself on any point. Of all the expedition he seemed to be the best and most dispassionate judge of Mrs. Leidner’s personality. I think that he always knew her for exactly what she was—but what impression her personality made on him I was unable to discover. I fancy that Mrs. Leidner herself must have been provoked and angered by his attitude.
“I may say that of all the expedition, as far as character and capacity were concerned, Mr. Emmott seemed to me the most fitted to bring a clever and well-timed crime off satisfactorily.”
For the first time, Mr. Emmott raised his eyes from the toes of his boots.
“Thank you,” he said.
There seemed to be just a trace of amusement in his voice.
“The last two people on my list were Richard Carey and Father Lavigny.
“According to the testimony of Nurse Leatheran and others, Mr. Carey and Mrs. Leidner disliked each other. They were both civil with an effort. Another person, Miss Reilly, propounded a totally different theory to account for their attitude of frigid politeness.
“I soon had very little doubt that Miss Reilly’s explanation was the correct one. I acquired my certitude by the simple expedient of provoking Mr. Carey into reckless and unguarded speech. It was not difficult. As I soon saw, he was in a state of high nervous tension. In fact he was—and is—very near a complete nervous breakdown. A man who is suffering up to the limit of his capacity can seldom put up much of a fight.
“Mr. Carey’s barriers came down almost immediately. He told me, with a sincerity that I did not for a moment doubt, that he hated Mrs. Leidner.
“And he was undoubtedly speaking the truth. He did hate Mrs. Leidner. But why did he hate her?
“I have spoken of women who have a calamitous magic. But men have that magic too. There are men who are able without the least effort to attract women. What they call in these days le sex appeal! Mr. Carey had this quality very strongly. He was to begin with devoted to his friend and employer, and indifferent to his employer’s wife. That did not suit Mrs. Leidner. She must dominate—and she set herself out to capture Richard Carey. But here, I believe, something entirely unforeseen took place. She herself for perhaps the first time in her life, fell a victim to an overmastering passion. She fell in love—really in love—with Richard Carey.
“And he—was unable to resist her. Here is the truth of the terrible state of nervous tension that he has been enduring. He has been a man torn by two opposing passions. He loved Louise Leidner—yes, but he also hated her. He hated her for undermining his loyalty to his friend. There is no hatred so great as that of a man who has been made to love a woman against his will.
“I had here all the motive that I needed. I was convinced that at certain moments the most natural thing for Richard Carey to do would have been to strike with all the force of his arm at the beautiful face that had cast a spell over him.
“All along I had felt sure that the murder of Louise Leidner was a crime passionnel. In Mr. Carey I had found an ideal murderer for that type of crime.
“There remains one other candidate for the title of murderer—Father Lavigny. My attention was attracted to the good Father straightaway by a certain discrepancy between his description of the strange man who had been seen peering in at the window and the one given by Nurse Leatheran. In all accounts given by different witnesses there is usually some discrepancy, but this was absolutely glaring. Moreover, Father Lavigny insisted on a certain characteristic—a squint—which ought to make identification much easier.
“But very soon it became apparent that while Nurse Leatheran’s description was substantially accurate, Father Lavigny’s was nothing of the kind. It looked almost as though Father Lavigny was deliberately misleading us—as though he did not want the man caught.
“But in that case he must know something about this curious person. He had been seen talking to the man but we had only his word for what they had been talking about.
“What had the Iraqi been doing when Nurse Leatheran and Mrs. Leidner saw him? Trying to peer through the window—Mrs. Leidner’s window, so they thought, but I realized when I went and stood where they had been, that it might equally have been the antika room window.
“The night after that an alarm was given. Someone was in the antika room. Nothing proved to have been taken, however. The interesting point to me is that when Dr. Leidner got there he found Father Lavigny there before him. Father Lavigny tells his story of seeing a light. But again we have only his word for it.
“I begin to get curious about Father Lavigny. The other day when I make the suggestion that Father Lavigny may be Frederick Bosner, Dr. Leidner pooh-poohs the suggestion. He says Father Lavigny is a well-known man. I advance the supposition that Frederick Bosner, who has had nearly twenty years to make a career for himself, under a new name, may very possibly be a well-known man by this time! All the same, I do not think that he has spent the intervening time in a religious community. A very much simpler solution presents itself.